The Hacker Factor Blog

This week really gave me a thrill. Readers, models, and even large companies have taken steps against digital photo manipulation in the media.

The first big congrats goes to Domino's Pizza. They recently announced a promise to use real photos of real pizzas in their advertisements. No more cardboard, glue, and partially-cooked food that looks "better" when photographed.

Our Photo Promise
Here at Domino's, we don't think our inspired Domino's pizza needs the "extra" things typically done to food at photo shoots to look mouth watering. Our pizza is good enough to stand on its own. That's why we're making the following promises about how we photograph our pizzas from this day forward. Did we just buck the food photography trend? Oh yes we did.

1. We will only photograph real, honest-to-goodness pizzas.
That means fresh from our own ovens, with exactly the same ingredients we deliver to your doorstep. Nothing else added.

2. Our employees will make the pizza we shoot.
Not an art director or model maker or food stylist. A Domino's employee trained to make pizzas the only way they know how: by hand.

3. We will not artificially manipulate the food we shoot.
No tweezers, no steam guns, no model knives cutting perfect perforations in the cheese. The only thing that will touch the pizzas we shoot is the pizza-maker's hands and a standard Domino's pizza cutter.

Russell Weiner, Chief Marketing Officer

Bravo! I've looked at some of the pizza photos on their web site and I must say: no detectable manipulation (beyond scaling and cropping, which does not modify the look of the food). Moreover, the food actually looks good! (Good enough for me to now have a pizza craving.)

Pizza Photo by Makena B. from Houston, TX

Worth the Wait

Not to be outdone, plus-size model (and super hottie) Crystal Renn just went on the record saying that she is offended by some photoshopping done to her picture. As she said in her Today Show interview this morning, "When I first saw the photos, I would have to say I was absolutely shocked." The photographer turned this well-known size-10 into much thinner version. (But at least he didn't give her noodle arms, right Ralphie?)

The photographer, Nicholas Routzen, has this reply:

I want to reiterate that I feel Crystal looks amazing in both images and the minimal retouching that I did do - it's nothing you wouldn't see in any magazine today. There is nothing hidden about this.

This tells me three things: (1) he sways to peer pressure (everyone else is doing it...), (2) he does not listen to the models that he shoots (Renn has been a strong voice against the unhealthy, unrealistic anorexic female shape that most of the fashion companies strive for), and (3) he photoshops his pictures. It makes me want to take a much closer look and see if he also does splicing, smoothing, and other common forms of deceptive manipulation.

However, I would not recommend browsing Routzen's blog. Some of his photos could easily pass for child pornography. (Full frontal nudity of a minor.)

Feeling Pumped

But I am saving my largest applause for America Blog and Gizmodo. These people have been looking at the media photos released by British Petroleum (BP).

It isn't enough that BP's runaway deep-sea oil well poisoned the Gulf of Mexico, after they lied to the United States by claiming that they knew how to handle any deep-sea accidents. Or when they repeatedly underestimated the amount of oil and would not assist scientists in creating an accurate estimate (we still don't know how much oil was leaked). Or that they only provided low resolution video feeds to the public while they had high resolution footage available. Or that they tried to stop the media from documenting the disaster. No... they also have to doctor pictures. (Is anyone really surprised?)

One photo has the title "Aerials over Gulf of Mexico". With a name like "aerials", one would think it would be taken from the air...

The problem is, the view out the window has been photoshopped. I noticed many things in this picture, but the people on Reddit just shredded the photo. Some of the findings:

• The display clearly says that the door is open, ramp is open, rotor brake is on, and parking break is on. There is no way this helicopter is in the air.
  
  
• The radar shows something to the far left, but nothing in front of him. Thus, no boats.
  
• There is a light that says APU GEN ON. This is the alternate power unit. It provides power until the engines are started.
  
• The pilot is holding a pre-flight checklist. (Ironic that his fingers are crossed.)
  
• Neither pilot is holding the flight stick!
  
• There is a waterbottle resting in the handhold above the guy on the right. The water in the bottle is smooth and flat -- no vibrations at all.
  
• The pilot on the left is wearing glasses. The glasses are reflecting some type of straight-line object. This is likely a runway or edge for the helipad.
  
• The outside water goes from clear blue to smokey. You can clearly see the waves in the blue and smokey areas, but the waves are fuzzy/blended where the two meet.
  
• The water is also blurry around the pilot on the left and near the top of the right window.
  
• The edge of the boats on the left are precisely in the fuzzy section.
  
• The first boat in the right window has a very visible shadow. So all boats should have shadows. However, none of the boats in the left window have shadows.
  
• The boat with shadow indicates that the sun in in front of the helicopter. However, the entire copter is in shadow and so is the tower structure (top left).

This isn't even the entire list. It is suffice to say that this is not an "aerial" photo and it has been grossly modified.

Another photo shows people in front of some monitors. The problem is, the image shown in some of the monitors was changed. Technically, content from three screens was replicated into the three off-line screens. Oh, and the picture has an internal timestamp indicating that it was created in 2001 (2001-03-06 15:16:50.25) and not 2010 (EXIF data modified time 2010-07-19 18:54:04.25). In either case, the timestamps do not match the "HIVE at Houston Command Center 16 July 2010" as BP captioned the picture.

Modified

Allegedly Unmodified

The final picture (so far) shows people in a meeting room. However, the splicing of the content on the screen was done very poorly.

Here's a closeup of some of the splicing:

Frankly, I'm not sure what is more offensive -- the fact that the picture was modified, or the quality of the modification. In either case, this should be a firing offense.

Of course, I began to do what everyone else is probably doing -- poring over bp.com and looking for more doctored photos. That's when I noticed something. All of the modified photos appear to have something in common. The meta data and associated credits identify the photographer as "Marc Morrison".

Hello, Marc

According to his bio, Marc has been a photographer for 26 years and works for BP. A significant number of photos released by BP were taken by Marc.

Marc prefers Canon cameras like the EOS-1Ds Mark II or EOS 5D. While these cameras usually take very good photos, Marc's pictures always have a large mount of sensor noise and discoloration. (I can actually pick out Marc's photos on BP's site just by looking for the sensor noise and grainy coloring. Not every picture has had content modifications, but all look grainy and noisy.)

When it comes to manipulation, Marc seems to rely on overlaying and blending. He primarily targets flat surfaces like monitors or windows. His non-grainy photos appear to have color enhancements to make bright colors pop -- look for things that are red or yellow (his favorite bright colors). I have not seen him advance to people splicing, reflections, or lighting. He also appears to be fond of image cropping; I have yet to see any of his photos that are anywhere near close to a native camera resolution size. Oh, and Marc likes to use something called Photoshelter. (Since I have no experience with it, I can't tell if it is a program for editing or only web creations and annotations... In either case, many of his photos were modified by it.)

Two photos by Morrison. The left is "AP Photo/BP, Marc Morrison". The right is "EPA/Marc Morrison/BP Handout". Both show the same room and same people but at slightly different times. Some monitors are the same, some are different. Is either unmodified?

Now, for clarity, there appears to be many photographers named "Marc Morrison". One lives in Steamboat Springs, Colorado -- I really don't think it is him. Another lives in Houston, Texas. The Houston guy seems to take some celebrity photos as well as plenty of oil rig and related industrial photos. However, I haven't seen anything that says the guy in Houston works for BP. (This Marc could be a different Marc.)

In any case, many of the photos provided by BP's Marc Morrison were credited as "AP Photos/BP, Marc Morrison" and "Marc Morrison - AP". (Example: Washington Post, look at the slide show.) However, I cannot find any of Marc's photos at AP's web site. I wonder if they already booted him for altering images...

(Thanks to the 11 people who sent me links to this BP story. Keep 'em coming!)